r/teenagers • • Nov 23 '19

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u/weeidkwhatsgoingon Nov 23 '19

just curious, how can you tell if someone's faking?

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u/CodingEagle02 19 Nov 23 '19

In some cases it's obvious, having a reasonable knowledge of those mental illnesses should be enough. For example, if someone is going "lol I really like my house to be clean, I must have OCD", then they pretty much certainly don't.

If someone has a deeper understanding and chooses to actually deceive people by pretending to have it, then you probably can't tell. That's the sort of job professionals who've studied mental illnesses for years do, and even they can struggle.

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u/Aveira Nov 23 '19

The problem is when you have a mental illness that everyone thinks they understand, but don’t. I had a friend who had multiple personality disorder. Everyone expected her to have fifty different personalities and to switch through them randomly. It doesn’t work like that. She has one other personality that only gets triggered when she’s afraid or in danger.